Canada West Foundation president Roger Gibbins figures there is only one way prime minister Stephen Harper can convince provinces to hold elections for prospective Senate appointments.
“If he simply announced he will only appoint senators who have been selected in provincial votes, provinces would either have to comply or see their representation in the Senate dwindle as senators retire,” Gibbins said.
Short of that dramatic and unilateral prime ministerial decision, senate reformers say there is little chance Harper and his Conservative government will be able to implement the senate reform they have promised and dreamed of for years. That’s because of provincial reluctance.
Read Also
India slaps 30 per cent import duty on yellow peas
India has imposed a 30 per cent duty on yellow pea imports with a bill of lading date on or after Nov. 1, 2025.
Advocates of an elected Senate cite as a precedent the experience in the United States when Oregon and then Nebraska decided early in the 20th century to elect senators who previously had been appointed by state legislatures.
Within a few years, a clamour for elections spread and finally in 1913 a constitutional amendment was passed to require direct election of two senators from each state.
They hope last week’s appointment of Bert Brown, elected in an unofficial Alberta vote in 2004, will start the ball rolling in Canada.
But Hugh Thorburn, professor emeritus in political studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., said last week the parallels are slim.
“I don’t really see this as the beginning of a democratic movement,” he said.
It is largely a question of Canada’s complex federal-provincial system.
“I think there are factors in Canada that make it less likely,” Thorburn said. “The primary difficulty is securing any kind of constitutional reform. Constitutional negotiations scare away politicians after the morass that has been created in the past.”
He said part of the provincial reluctance to move to an elected Senate without other modernizing reforms is that it would lock in existing representation inequities. Prince Edward Island’s 100,000 people would elect four senators while populous British Columbia and Alberta would elect just two each.
“The population inequities are gross,” Thorburn said. “Besides, despite all the talk of democratic reform in the Senate, an elected Senate would be better able to challenge the House of Commons and the legitimacy elections would give senators would mean it (the Senate) would become a stronger voice representing the regions. The provinces would lose some of their clout as national players.”
Gibbins made the same point.
“A more legitimate Senate clearly would compete with provinces and premiers to be the voice of the regions and what would be in that for the provinces? And the premiers would have to agree so I think what initiative there is will have to come from the feds.”
